University of Virginia Library

Cavayearlings Run Past Laurinburg

BY DOUG DOUGHTY

Prior to last night's
record-breaking extravaganza,
the Cavayearlings got ahead
early and then rolled to an easy
98-81 win over Laurinburg
Normal Institute of North
Carolina.

Laurinburg, which you may
remember as the alma mater of
collegiate and current pro star
Charlie Scott, is a preparatory
school which also allows the
pursuance of high-school post
grad work and often basketball
scholarship hopefuls attend
Laurinburg after high school to
hone their skills to a
major-college level.

Throwing a quite sizeable
lineup at the first-yearmen,
Laurinburg started 6-8 Mel
Werts, 6-7 Gerald Long and 6-6
Dylan Thomas in the
front court and guards Arnold
Graham and Kenneth
Edmonds, the only
North-Carolinian on the roster.

This high-school lineup
could rebound and run, and
occasionally play defense but
the Cavaliers found out early
Laurinburg's weakness.
Whenever one of the visitors
put the ball in the hoop it was
usually on the second or third
try and poor shooting and foul
trouble spelled out all sorts of
problems for Coach H. F.
McDuffey.

The score was fairly close in
the first five minutes but when
Cavayearling guard Brian Tully
hit with nine minutes gone on
a long jumper the margin was
19-12 and Laurinburg could not
get much closer than that.

Not enough could be said
about first-year center "Gus"
Gerard, who hit for 21 points in
the first half and was often in
the right spot on the court to
grab loose balls and claim
rebounds from the eager
preppies. At the half the
Cavayearlings led 47-40 but
reserves had been in for several
minutes and the margin had
been as much as fifteen points,
with the score 41-26.

Cavayearling Coach Truax
spent much of the second half
substituting and trying to work
together different units. Mostly
he got to watch his New York
City guards put on tremendous
displays of streak shooting.

Early in the second half Tully
bagged 12 of 16 straight Cavalier
points and Andy Boninti put
the icing on the cake when he
hit for 13 in a row a little later
on. After Boninti's little show,
Virginia led 93-66, which was
to be its greatest margin.

At that point the subs
entered for the Cavaliers and
rather inadequately mopped up
the game while being outscored
15-5 in the waning minutes.
Laurinburg was exhausted and
generally relieved to get off the
court, victims of policing that
would have been more than
enough to scatter even the
on-lookers during a Crozet
street brawl.

The refs called an amazing
52 fouls and as one Cavalier
noted "when the ref blew the
whistle and handed me the ball
I could swear nobody had
touched me". Johny Barrows
fouled out for Laurinburg,
which contracted 32 personals, and Edmonds joined him.
Three of their teammates
managed four fouls apiece.

Long led Laurinburg in
scoring with 20 points and
Graham, the sole remaining
guard with some semblance of
composure, netted 17 points
and he and Long were the only
players who hit over 30% while
seeing extensive duty.

Gerard led five Cavayearlings
in double figure scoring. But
"Gus" who resembles his
namesake on the Bullets more
and more each time out scored
29 and was leading Cavalier
rebounder with 11 grabs.
Boninti had 20, Tully 18, and
the two forwards. Spencer
Graham and Dan Bonner each
had 10 points. Gerard now
averages 24.3 points and 13.5
rebounds a game and leads the
team in both categories.